Never Said, Never Heard
by roseusvortex
Summary: The word tumbles out, dry, unused, and feeble - but it is still said and felt through every inch of her body - and for once, it fills her heart too.


**Written for flashfic Twisted Theme Challenge at The Hostile Takeover. Th** **eme: _Hope._ Prompts: _Ash grey, desperate, warmth, desolate place,_ and _tinted red._**

 **Hope you enjoy! Please review!  
**

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There is a word that feels strange on her tongue.

It feels strange in her heart, like it doesn't belong _in_ her. It doesn't belong in this town and it _certainly_ doesn't belong in the outside streets with starved people with their dead, _dead_ eyes and their pride in a powerful leader.

This word...

Liesel steps over the man sleeping on the floor, covered thinly with a spare blanket and she watches him for a moment. He shivers. She breaths. In another time, maybe she would've felt pity for him and gotten another blanket to cover him from the bitter cold in this basement.

This is not that time, though. This is a time where no one owns more than a few blankets and freezing in the cold is a sign that you are still alive.

She stays still a minute longer, to watch him shiver again. It assures her and she continues on.

Liesel touches a finger to the basement wall. It's cold and unfeeling.

For a moment, she is amazed that this basement can be such a desolate place compared to the warm sky and her Mama and Papa that live just above. Her gaze falls again to the shivering man. The word scrapes across her tongue and she bites it down.

She settles for tracing it on the wall. Once, twice, thrice...

"What are you doing?"

Liesel freezes, but her hand doesn't stop and she looks at the shivering man, who's staring at her. His eyes trail from her face to the wall, where she is tracing the word, over, over and _over_ again.

"Why are you doing that?"

Her hand stops its desperate pattern on the wall. The skin on her finger is scrapped, broken, tinted red from the rough concrete dark wall. Ash grey, she thinks, just like the Papa's eyes when he looks so very tired.

Mama and Papa are very tired.

Tired like young man who gets up slowly from the floor, tattered blanket wrapped around his skinny shoulders and knelts besides her. He doesn't scold her like she thought he was going to do, merely just sighs and leans close to her.

She goes back to tracing the word.

He shivers.

Within moments of each other, she realizes two very important things.

She realizes that the word doesn't need to be written, it doesn't need to be said, because it _lives_ in this basement. It lives in the shivering man besides her. It's not in everyone's hearts, but it might live in the boys who like to believe they are Jesse Owens in the streets at night. Liesel pauses at the thought of Rudy, and _he_ shivers beside her again. Bringing her back. Almost like...

...bringing her back to life.

She shakes the thought of Rudy Steiner from her head, trying to focus again. Tracing this word here... it was the desperate reminder that it lives in every space of this basement while _this_ young man lives here, and maybe one day, it will escape the hard walls of concrete and make the warm skies even warmer and make Papa's eyes always stay bright gentle silver.

And then...

She realizes the young man beside her is no longer shivering. For a second, her heart stops, but it continues a little faster and joyful. He is warm, not shivering nor cold. Together, they are both filled with warmth. One day, they can be filled with warmth and it won't be in a basement hiding to live. It'll be during the winter, staring at the stars with several blankets piled ontop of them. Maybe then, they will stare upon a snowman they made together and laugh about how evil leaders can fall.

She realizes both of these things and how it pertains to the word that won't escape her lips.

Liesel leans closer to Max and watches the walls of grey. Sleep has fallen on her companion and already it has started to capture her.

The word tumbles out, dry, unused, and feeble, but it still is said and felt through every inch of her body, and for once, it fills her heart too.

This word...

"... _hope."_


End file.
